Back catalogue: Deep House

Review: LEGRAM VG & Rubber Ducky Records have come together for this playful Game of Tunes series, and the third entry in it offers four more wafty tech house delights. Baldov's 'Dance Connection' is a balmy and breezy opener with some warm synth injections to soften the rickety tech beats. Sif B's 'Small World' is a bubbly cut with sci-fi motifs and Buenaguas's 'Music Or Noise?' Marries distant cosmic pads with sparky synth sequences that make for some nice colourful combinations. Alich's 'The Evidence' is the best of the lot - a pent-up, garage-tinged kicker with ass-wiggling beats and acid prickles. Pure heat.

Review: Coeur De Glace on DKO Records (DKO 34) delivers four fantastic electro tracks, each with unique influences and directions. Side-1 kicks off with Binary Digit's 'U Want Dis,' an exuberant, high-energy track that pays homage to old-school rave with its lively vocal samples. Fasme's 'Morning' follows, blending smooth electro with soft keys and a whimsical AFX melody for a perfect combination. Side-2 features GGGG's 'La Cueillette,' a feel-good, fun and melodic electro tune. The EP concludes with Mud Deep & Sans-Qui's 'Mesonyx,' offering IDM goodness reminiscent of Rephlex, Squarepusher, and AFX. Coeur De Glaceis a vibrant and diverse collection, sure to delight fans of electro and techno.

Review: Fledgling French label Parodia looks across to Sweden for Malmo-based producer Sacred Grove's Through the Mire EP. The artist's alias is drawn from an important feature of mythical landscapes and the music is just as mystic. 'Dusk' begins with cavernous house depths and smeared cosmic chord work while 'Dawn' picks up the pace to offer some muted piano house euphoria that is cool as a cucumber. 'Neusea' (Delay mix) flips it again with a hyper-speed and ice-cold deep space techno then the final varied offering is 'Loverz', a melton twisting cut of high-speed loops, celestial chords and dreamy atmospheres.

Review: Frankfurt producer Victor Shan has long been one of Germany's premier rave revivalists, periodically returning to Running Back with EPs that evoke mental images of turn-of-the-'90s warehouse parties and sweat-soaked basement parties illuminated by little more than red lights. His belated return to Gerd Janson's imprint pushes this sonic aesthetic to the fore, with the title being a reference to the Chicago venue of the same name that helped birth house music. It's full-throttle, hands-in-the-air music from the off, where stab-happy, breakbeat-powered stomper 'Abfahrt' is followed by the 'Apache'-sampling excitement of 'Strobelight' and the surging, Italo-style arpeggiated bass of 'Volume Up'. The fun continues on the flip via the moody 'Textura', the lusciously loved-up 'R8000' and the classic Chicago house flex of 'Shifter'.

Review: Shan's second installment in his warehouse series continues to deliver the high-octane energy that made its predecessor a hit. The TRACKS perfectly capture the essence of underground raving in forgotten, defiant spaces. The opener, 'Phantazia,' leads the way, blending proto-hardcore vibes with soulful strings reminiscent of Soul II Soul. It's a track that commands attention, demanding action on the dancefloor. '89 Swing' and 'Euphony' bring in breakbeats that nod to the golden era of rave, with the latter evoking the atmospheric soundscapes of The Future Sound of London. 'Elevate' blurs the line between house and techno, creating a pulsating rhythm that's as hypnotic as it is driving. 'Uplift My Spirit' brings a touch of warmth with its break-for-love vibe, adding emotional depth to the EP. Each track on this EP is crafted to fit any rave setting, offering something for everyone, whether you're deep in a warehouse or lost in a late-night set. Shan delivers another potent dose of rave nostalgia, with a modern twist.

Review: Shonky & Alexander Skancke team up for the third release on the Berlin based label Stoned Pilot ran by Shonky. 'The Answer' is an excellent late-night jam that is seductive and sexy. So, too is 'XXX' adding some great Chicago style claps with a great vox sample in "Get on up!". If you like Adonis's 'No Way Back' then you are sure to like that one(who doesn't?!'. For the second side the title track is a more eerie romp into the unknown wild. This track is magnetic! Closing out the EP is '2019' that almost sounds like something that should have been on Metroplex in 1985. Robot-funk of the upmost! This EP is some serious business. We can see this rocking some serious dancefloors with ease.

Review: Skatman's sounds often merge different facets of different genres into something fresh enough to pique the interest. This new album on Cognitive Prophecy is another case in point. It is club-ready tech and minimal but with standout character such as the squealing lead and auto-tuned vocal fragments of 'Fresh' which make it sound super futuristic. There is a warm afterglow to the vamping chords of ageless house jam 'Feel It' and 'Dream On' very much gets you into that mindstate with its widescreen synth smears.

Review: Anja Schneider has been at the heart of the Berlin underground for decades. Famously she headed up the Mobilee label which was a powerhouse of, well, house, and now she revisits her sizeable back catalogue for a bumper triple album of remixes, works and updates. If nothing else this collection shows what great range she had as all styes are covered from dark and driving tech to more blissed out deep house. The likes of 'Turning My Head' show great percussive flair and 'Dubmission' (Julian Muller remix) is quick and slick, stripped back minimal. Vocal delight 'Rain' is a real classic amongst many here.

Review: Dubwise astral travellers Seekersinternational here present their latest self-released album, 'What He Does', another timeless meditation on cosmic dub and house. Phoned-in vocal samples, two-tone ambiences, soothing sub; they all feature on this mega LP from the artist and label, whose aim is clearly to bring an extra, perhaps fourth, dimension to an established sounds. Rough and ready and analogue-centric, it's perfect for the restless jam-seeker.

Review: Dance Music From Planet Earth is a new sub-label from Ransom Note that kicks off with a heritage compilation, Dream The Dream. It looks back in great detail at UK Techno, House and Breakbeat 1990-1994 with Richard Sen as the man in control. He was a DJ back in those days, playing the most epic raves around Europe and taking some of the photos which now form the artwork for this collection. His obsessive record collecting from those days is reflected here across a series of sometimes obscure but always brilliant UK tunes for the worlds of ambient, techno, tribal house, breakbeat and early trance.

Review: As one of the leading lights in Norwegian techno with guts, heart and soul, Skatebard has long skirted scene recognition to simply focus on slipping out his own strain of wayward machine matter. Given his track record with Sex Tags Mania, it's no surprise he'd trust DJ Sotofett with access to his archives, and so Spektral has come together as an exploration of long-buried recordings from the early 00s, edited by Sotofett and wrestled into a digestible form for this record. Capturing the best aspects of freeform jamming while cutting everything into shape, there's an inherent dirtiness to these recordings which instantly tells you it comes from an honest place.